Reviews and Comments

Fantastic. If you enjoyed Saint of Bright Doors I’d say this is an easy recommendation. It is less linear and a bit more off the rails; it’s like reading a Dali painting at times in the best of ways. We even get to venture back to Luriat for a time, in time. Don’t want to say too much because you should just take the plunge, but it’s a book I desperately want to talk about with people.

Narration was great but it probably increases the difficulty in keeping characters straight.

17% into the audiobook and this is a banger!

The lighthearted tag I saw on this was a lie. It’s almost 50% gut wrenching sadness. Really good emotional read, but not what I was wanting and I felt like I was taken hostage, needing to rush to the end since it was unrelenting. Not the books fault, it would have been a five star had I been emotionally primed for it.

Big recommend to anyone that liked Legends and Lattes or similar stories. This book did really well with balancing the cozy vibes with external threats to the community and everything the characters built, which gave it more depth than L&L, more akin to Bookshops and Bonedust. The world building was interesting enough to me to not fall into generic fantasy.

I loved the emphasis on non-violent outcomes and diversion of fantasy bad character tropes to productive members of a community, which really added to the depth. I hate when a bandit or thief type is just one dimensionally “bad”. I also loved that the romance is healthy with good communication and positive modeling of working through issues.

Fascinating and informative. Highly recommended if you’re curious in the origins of workers rights, unions, uprisings, etc. Does a great job of putting into focus the often ambiguous specter of the machinations that the titans of industry/big tech/etc as they wage war against the work class in the name of higher profit margins.

It does help put into context many references towards the Luddites I’ve encountered in fiction recently, most notably in Babel. I also have a new appreciation for Frankenstein that I’ve somehow missed out on in all of my counter culture exposure.

I likely need a cool down period since I am even more outraged than normal at every injustice I’ve encountered since starting this book. And let’s face it, it’s hard to turn around without being confronted by injustice.

This book devoured me. Elegant prose, fascinating world, refreshing magic, deep complicated characters, everything was a hit for me. The narrators were all fantastic and really brought this to life in a way my own inner voice would fail to do, especially since I am unfamiliar with Polish. There was an editing error, or so I assume, and the last 90seconds was duplicated earlier in the final chapter, which made it hit a little less as the send off. But maybe it’s the same in the print version and something went over my head.

Not for me. It leans more young than young adult and I’m not sure that was intentional. Other people seem to love it though.

I’m only about half way through, but if you want to trick yourself into reading some non-fiction, this is basically the Murderbot world building source book for the corporation rim.

Enjoyed the setting and what Nethercott was getting at with this story. Interesting storytelling and world building with themes of personal, familial, generational, and cultural trauma. It can get dark but didn’t feel too heavy. The folklore tie-ins felt especially well done and I wish there was more exploration of the world, but it wasn’t that kind of story.

And look, I hated Isaac. Almost quit reading because of the character. Then eventually I saw parts of my past trauma responses reflected in his behavior and it clicked why I hated him so much. I still feel his backstory required me to give him too much of a pass, but hurt people hurt people and we all react and hurt differently.

Had a great time with this. I haven’t had this much fun in a fantasy setting since the Shades of Magic books by V.E. Schwab and the Witch King by Martha Wells.

The mystery aspects were well done - all of the pieces were available and figuring out broad strokes was even within my own grasp. It was great fun to see the internal logic spelled out and add to the world building.

For anyone that’s read this, have you also read the Foundryside series as well; are those books as good as this one?

Not my favorite of the stories, but still better than good. Slower burn, mysterious. I think some plot points/characters could have used a bit more fleshing out. If you’ve enjoyed the rest of Singing Hills, this has the familiar yet different feel to it and is worth your time.

Intentionally read this slow to savor it. This is what I want from a light hearted cozy slice of life - enough depth and emotional resonance for characters to work through small (but big to them) struggles without it feeling too perfect.

It is a bit episodic in nature at times, but the slow pace I read it made it so I didn’t mind that at all. If I gave into my desire to devour this quickly then I may have felt a little differently and knocked a star based on my mood influencing the feel.

Great if you like some of the other recent slice of life darlings that feature bookish or coffee themes. Lower emotional stakes but still has depth.